Anne Émond nabs the Claude Jutra Award for Nuit #1

I really liked Nuit #1, Anne Émond’s brave first feature, and so apparently do the folks at the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. The Academy announced Wednesday that Émond has won this year’s Claude Jutra Award for Nuit #1.

That award is given to oustanding achievement by a first-time feture filmmaker and it will be given to Emond during this year’s Genie Awards, which will be presented in Toronto March 8.

Nuit #1 is also nominated for two other Genie Awards – Émond is up for best original screenplay and Catherine de Léan is in the running for best actress, competing against, amongst others, Vanessa Paradis from Cafe de Flore.

The film opens with a graphic 12-minute real-time sex scene shot in stark style. Clara (de Léan) and Nikolai (Dimitri Storoge) meet at a rave and then head straight back to his rather dingy apartment to get it on in kinda mechanical fashion. Then they talk for hours and hours. Or rather they deliver wordy, literate monologues to each other. It is a remarkable, if challenging, piece, and I love the fact that Émond is so willing to make us work so hard while watching the film.

Nuit #1 had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, where it garnered a special mention from the Canada First jury, and it will open in the U.S. later this year via Adopt Films. All in all, it’s already done real well for a Quebec flick.

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